31/03/2024

April 2024 Musings

When tempted 

by immediate pleasures

think 

longer-term outcomes 

and stop.

Ambition recruits

allies-in-life

not friends.

Fine

holistic education 

raises 

self-esteem and aspirations.

The beauty of charities

attracts

benefactors

both financial 

and as volunteers.

Hitler's swift defeat of France 

worried Stalin

it would give him less time 

to rebuild the Soviet army 

whose leadership

he had slaughtered in the 30s.

As in the past

factories win wars

USA &UK Industrial mass production 

defeated Hitler.

All too easy

to neglect the fact

that most others

do not think

like me.

Ever since my Eriskay Experience in 1954

I have never walked alone.

There is no one richer

than me.

Music unites 

Above and below

Political divides.

On the evening of Saturday March 23rd, in The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford, while listening to Opus 48, in which my Goddaughter Kate was singing Mozart's Requiem, I suddenly realized I had to write down the thoughts that had been welling up in my heart these past few years.

As time passes and we journey on, in my case joyfully, towards eternity, we all have our roles to play. I believe one of mine is to let people know what life has taught me. One lesson is - alas - crystal clear: Christianity is no longer, in the western world, attractive.

God's reality is far beyond our full understanding. however, thanks to Jesus Christ - God translated into the vernacular of our humanity - we could discover much about the Divine Creator. That reality is immensely life enhancing. However, the presentation -  the way it is all too often taught and the way it appears in many liturgical texts - is not.

What sort of Father is God if we need to pray “Lend your merciful ear to our prayers”

And “Stir up your power, O Lord - not ‘loving father’ - and come to our help.”(Thursday collect first week in Advent).

If “at the Saviour’s command and formed by divine teaching, why on earth do we ‘dare’ to say: Our Father… Having been given a command and taught by Christ, ‘I would not dare to pray in any other way.”

As Christianity grew, first under the aegis of the Roman Emperor - who convened the Council of Nicea - and then profoundly influenced by Roman Law – and then the monarchies around Europe, the words that appear in Mozart's Requiem  - influenced by this secular history - do not do justice to the Divine Reality as disclosed by Jesus of Nazareth, The Christ.

No wonder so many modern folk - once they pass through their puberty - reject this divinity and do not seek to discover that divine reality.

How can the following nouns, adjectives and phrases – in bold - be applied to the God of The Christ?

Great trembling there will be when the Judge descends from heaven to examine all things closely. 

In the light of ‘today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23,43)

King of tremendous majesty, who freely saves those worthy ones, save me, source of mercy. 

Yet Jesus – the Judge – calls us ‘friends’ (Jn 15,15)

Remember, kind Jesus, my salvation caused your suffering;

“I am going – freely it seems – to The One who sent me. Unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to you.” (Jn 16, 5 &7)

The Holy Spirit is the ‘we’ of the Father and Son – each is an instantaneous, eternal, mutual gift!

Righteous judge of vengeance, grant me the gift of absolution before the day of retribution.

“I am going to prepare a place for you. I shall return to take you to myself.” (Jn14,2-3)

For me, the key to all Christ’s sayings is that he sees me – and I see him – as friend.  Indeed, Yesh  - Yeshua ben Josef - is my best friend.

'Almighty' is a misleading word when applied to God.

For me 'almighty' means that there is only one God who has created everything - to avoid polytheism or henotheism (the best of all gods). Everything has been created by the one 'almighty' creator.

There is a long string of things God cannot do. God cannot force any human - with his or her free will - to love God or indeed behave morally. Hence so much evil in the world. God cannot make a square triangle or turn a horse into a fish; turn the sun into the moon, a human being into a cat.

In liturgy, it would be far better to change 'almighty' into 'all-loving'. Seriously intelligent folk might be happy to seek to accept this God and relate with this - for me - real God. That is the God I love. That is the God I strive to help to make this world a better place.

“Almighty” may have been used motivationally. In the Original Testament books there is a great deal of motivational  rather than descriptive use of language.

When a mother says 'if you do that, I will chop your fingers off" she is using language motivationally, otherwise those words would be abusive, criminal. "You can do It," says a trainer is motivational if he does not win, it would be a lie.

***

From the singularity of the Big Bang there are now two trillion galaxies in our observable universe. Our own galaxy has some 100billion stars  - including me who at conception was a single cell and now, being male, I have 36 billion of these. Were I female, I would have some 28 billion.

Our Creator God is a design genius who has guided evolution silently and magnificently for some 13.7 billion years – and me for over 85 (9 months of these in my mother’s uterus). Chapeau! 

When, at the end of journey to eternity I meet the Blessed Trinity, I will be speechless in wonder.